"Except you couldn't, because I don't have it with me," Howard says quickly. "That's why you need me alive and cooperative if you want it."

He's used this song and dance time and time again. Usually it works, if only because people keep him alive long enough to see if he's lying.

"It's not about dying. It's about how they set up the Games. Dying's easy, strategy isn't, you know?" He sees her moving and takes his own step back, to get closer to the counter. It'll at least put something between them.